WORCESTER — With Christmas just a few days away, things are hectic for most people, and holiday wariness often sets in.

But after losing everything — including her two dogs, Buu and Wicket — in a fire last week at her Brooklyn, Conn., home, Shannon McNamara seems to be keeping busy to keep her sanity.

Meanwhile, her friends are keeping busy helping the former Worcester resident and her husband, Jestyn Flores, get back on their feet.

Ms. McNamara, a graphic designer at Benjamin Moore in Westboro, normally gets home around 5 p.m. most days, but went to a friend's house Wednesday to wrap presents. She received a call later in the evening from her husband reporting that their house was on fire.

She said she wasn't even sure Mr. Flores had called 911, so she tried to call from her cellphone as she got in her car to head home. When she got there, she parked in a neighbor's driveway and saw firetrucks lining the street in front of her house. The house was charred; her front door was flat on the front lawn. The windows were broken. The kitchen floor had caved in.

Her thoughts quickly turned to Buu, her 10-year-old American bulldog, and Wicket, a Staffordshire bull terrier she rescued when she lived in Arizona. She said Buu was so popular he even had his own Twitter handle; she said he looked exactly like Petey from the old "The Little Rascals" television show. She rescued him from Pennsylvania. She said Wicket was saved from being destroyed at a shelter with just 10 minutes to spare. She ended up bringing him back to work that day.

"He was a snuggle bug," she said in a telephone interview Sunday night. "He was my little shadow. We did everything together."

She said Mr. Flores, who works for Charter Communications in Worcester, briefly attempted to go into the house; when he called for the dogs, they did not come, Ms. McNamara said. He got far enough into the house to realize the dogs did not make it, she said.

The couple is staying with Ms. McNamara's mother and stepfather, Lynn and Marcus Watson, in their Laurier Street home while they try to figure out their next steps. Mr. Flores is meeting with the insurance company, and Ms. McNamara said the couple will likely try to find a place to rent while the process unfolds. She said she hasn't been back to the house since the fire; she said she can't bring herself to go back there.

"I feel like we're on some weird vacation we're not allowed to go home from," Ms. McNamara said.

Besides a few small items, like her grandmother's photo album and a teddy bear she had since she was a child, little else could be salvaged. She happened to not be wearing her wedding ring that day; it has not been found. A motorcycle owned by her late father, which she had been storing in the couple's garage, was destroyed. Ms. McNamara said fire officials think the fire may have started in the kitchen.

Still, despite the devastating loss, Ms. McNamara said her favorite time of year is Christmas. She said she is known as the friend and relative who always tells everyone else not to get her anything; this year she didn't really have a choice.

"My friends have been great," Ms. McNamara said.

One of those friends is John Saari. Mr. Saari said Ms. McNamara was the maid of honor in his sister's wedding. He has been working on a Facebook page called Random Acts of Kindness, and decided to ask his connections to donate to help out the couple. He put together a brief video and set up a PayPal account, and the donations started pouring in. In just a few days the site raised around $3,000 to help Ms. McNamara and Mr. Flores get back on their feet.

The effort was partly just wanting to help, and partly a social media experiment, Mr. Saari said.

"How do I make these good deeds go viral?" Mr. Saari said.

Mr. Saari said he knew people would support Ms. McNamara and Mr. Flores because of the people they are, but hopes he can continue to help other people in the future.

"I hope to keep going with this," Mr. Saari said. "Hopefully we'll be able to help out the other Shannons out there."

Ms. McNamara said friends almost immediately started showing up with clothes and other items; she said she had great experiences getting refunds for the Christmas gifts she lost in the fire. For example, she said Amazon.com completely refunded her the money for everything she purchased directly from the online retailing giant; she said the company gave her a gift card to refund items purchased on Amazon.com but through a third-party vendor.

She joked that she and her husband were able to exchange at least one gift with each other. It turned out she had never gotten around to taking out of her car the car cleaning supplies she had bought for Mr. Flores; and a pair of boots Mr. Flores ordered online for Ms. McNamara arrived at the burned house the next day.

She said the money Mr. Saari raised is helping fill in other gaps, such as toiletries and other items.

"I went to TJ Maxx the other day and bought the first pair of sneakers that fit me," she said.